Allow yourself the gift if 26 minutes listening deeply, see what you hear about life, and about your self
all good things
Andy
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Healing Our Wounds
Healing Our Wounds
I urge you to look more deeply into what is being said here and to tune into the wisdom that this beautiful soul is sharing - look up Daniel Gottlieb and buy and share everything he writes and says.
Thankyou Dan
Andy
By Daniel Gottlieb - Author of Letters to Sam
Dear Sam,
Shortly after my accident, an occupational therapist introduced me to an anti-gravity device that would help me gain some use of my arms. The therapist strapped me into slings counterbalanced with springs, so my arms were literally weightless. Splints were attached to my hands. In each hand I held a pencil with the eraser-end pointing down. Using the feeling I still had in my shoulders to move my arms and hands and manipulate the erasers, I practiced turning the pages of a book. As my arms gained strength, the therapist reduced the springs' pressure so I would become strong enough to hold them up without the device. By the end of the week, I was able to turn pages without any assistance. My wife and the therapist were impressed by how quickly I'd been able to master this. "Look how much you've accomplished in one week!"
I felt complete despair.
"Five years ago," I said, "I wrote a three-hundred-fifty-page doctoral dissertation. And now you want me to be proud because I can turn a page?"
Sam, I know there will be times when you are hurt. Even now, when things don't go your way, you feel terrible emotional pain. But I hope you won't blame yourself or someone else for the pain. And, strange as it sounds, I also hope you will not listen to people who try to talk you out of your pain or show you ways to fix it. Because if you try too hard to fix pain, it only takes longer to heal!
Inevitably, all pain is about longing for yesterday -- whatever we had before, whatever used to be. But when pain doesn't go away fast enough, we criticize ourselves for not getting over it, for not being strong enough, or even for being vulnerable in the first place.
Sam, that's not how wounds heal. They don't obey our wishes. Healing takes place in its own way and in its own time.
About a year after that bleak experience of struggling to turn a page, I was back at work. Alone in my office, I attempted to move a printed article from a filing cabinet and put it onto my desk where I could read it. A single staple held together the sheets of paper. As I slid the stapled sheets from the filing cabinet, they started to slither from my grasp. I knew from bad experience that if paper fell to the floor and lay flat, I would have to get someone else to come and pick it up. As the papers started to slide down again, I slowed them with the back of my hand pressing against the filing cabinet. As the papers landed on the floor, they formed a tent, staple-side up, that I knew I could recover. With careful maneuvering, I got my thumb under the staple and gingerly lifted the article up to my desk.
It took about twenty minutes. And as the article finally came to rest faceup on my desk, I felt great pride.
Then I thought back to the previous year. Why did I feel grief then and pride now?
A year before, I was longing for yesterday. This year, I was living in today.
My wound had been healing. Not because I wished it to, not on my timetable, and not by any fancy techniques. I wasn't even aware that I was healing until that moment in my office.
How did the healing come about? The way wounds heal is a miracle. Inevitably, they heal on their own. All we have to do is not let our hungry egos demand that the pain go away on a certain timetable. We need to have faith that the pain will pass. After all, pain is an emotion and no emotion stays forever.
Sam, you will meet a lot of well-meaning people who think they know ways that you can heal more quickly and feel less pain. They may be eager to suggest those ways and may even insist there are things you "should do." They do, indeed, mean well, and most are acting out of genuine caring. But before you take their advice, remember that everything a physical wound needs to heal is already in the body. Oxygen, blood, nutrients are all in there, ready to begin their work. And the moment you are wounded, the healing begins.
Emotional wounds are the same. Sometimes these wounds do not heal because the mind gets all involved and says things like "I should do this and I'll feel better," or "Maybe I could do that to repair the damage," or "I am hurting because of what another person did, and once they fix it, I will feel better."
All of this mind talk just interferes with the natural healing process. When you feel deeply hurt, you have everything you need in yourself to repair the damage. You want compassion, understanding, and nurturing in order to heal. But most of all, you need time.
When I am in a dark tunnel, I want to be with people who love me enough to sit in the darkness with me and not stand outside telling me how to get out. I think that's what we all want.
When you are hurt, be close to people who love you and who can tolerate your pain without passing judgment or giving you advice. As time passes, you will long less for what you had yesterday and experience more of what you have today.
Love, Pop
I urge you to look more deeply into what is being said here and to tune into the wisdom that this beautiful soul is sharing - look up Daniel Gottlieb and buy and share everything he writes and says.
Thankyou Dan
Andy
By Daniel Gottlieb - Author of Letters to Sam
Dear Sam,
Shortly after my accident, an occupational therapist introduced me to an anti-gravity device that would help me gain some use of my arms. The therapist strapped me into slings counterbalanced with springs, so my arms were literally weightless. Splints were attached to my hands. In each hand I held a pencil with the eraser-end pointing down. Using the feeling I still had in my shoulders to move my arms and hands and manipulate the erasers, I practiced turning the pages of a book. As my arms gained strength, the therapist reduced the springs' pressure so I would become strong enough to hold them up without the device. By the end of the week, I was able to turn pages without any assistance. My wife and the therapist were impressed by how quickly I'd been able to master this. "Look how much you've accomplished in one week!"
I felt complete despair.
"Five years ago," I said, "I wrote a three-hundred-fifty-page doctoral dissertation. And now you want me to be proud because I can turn a page?"
Sam, I know there will be times when you are hurt. Even now, when things don't go your way, you feel terrible emotional pain. But I hope you won't blame yourself or someone else for the pain. And, strange as it sounds, I also hope you will not listen to people who try to talk you out of your pain or show you ways to fix it. Because if you try too hard to fix pain, it only takes longer to heal!
Inevitably, all pain is about longing for yesterday -- whatever we had before, whatever used to be. But when pain doesn't go away fast enough, we criticize ourselves for not getting over it, for not being strong enough, or even for being vulnerable in the first place.
Sam, that's not how wounds heal. They don't obey our wishes. Healing takes place in its own way and in its own time.
About a year after that bleak experience of struggling to turn a page, I was back at work. Alone in my office, I attempted to move a printed article from a filing cabinet and put it onto my desk where I could read it. A single staple held together the sheets of paper. As I slid the stapled sheets from the filing cabinet, they started to slither from my grasp. I knew from bad experience that if paper fell to the floor and lay flat, I would have to get someone else to come and pick it up. As the papers started to slide down again, I slowed them with the back of my hand pressing against the filing cabinet. As the papers landed on the floor, they formed a tent, staple-side up, that I knew I could recover. With careful maneuvering, I got my thumb under the staple and gingerly lifted the article up to my desk.
It took about twenty minutes. And as the article finally came to rest faceup on my desk, I felt great pride.
Then I thought back to the previous year. Why did I feel grief then and pride now?
A year before, I was longing for yesterday. This year, I was living in today.
My wound had been healing. Not because I wished it to, not on my timetable, and not by any fancy techniques. I wasn't even aware that I was healing until that moment in my office.
How did the healing come about? The way wounds heal is a miracle. Inevitably, they heal on their own. All we have to do is not let our hungry egos demand that the pain go away on a certain timetable. We need to have faith that the pain will pass. After all, pain is an emotion and no emotion stays forever.
Sam, you will meet a lot of well-meaning people who think they know ways that you can heal more quickly and feel less pain. They may be eager to suggest those ways and may even insist there are things you "should do." They do, indeed, mean well, and most are acting out of genuine caring. But before you take their advice, remember that everything a physical wound needs to heal is already in the body. Oxygen, blood, nutrients are all in there, ready to begin their work. And the moment you are wounded, the healing begins.
Emotional wounds are the same. Sometimes these wounds do not heal because the mind gets all involved and says things like "I should do this and I'll feel better," or "Maybe I could do that to repair the damage," or "I am hurting because of what another person did, and once they fix it, I will feel better."
All of this mind talk just interferes with the natural healing process. When you feel deeply hurt, you have everything you need in yourself to repair the damage. You want compassion, understanding, and nurturing in order to heal. But most of all, you need time.
When I am in a dark tunnel, I want to be with people who love me enough to sit in the darkness with me and not stand outside telling me how to get out. I think that's what we all want.
When you are hurt, be close to people who love you and who can tolerate your pain without passing judgment or giving you advice. As time passes, you will long less for what you had yesterday and experience more of what you have today.
Love, Pop
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
We all need to give
People who are seen as needy, labelled as weak, often dont get to give. Some research about people in a care home who shared the same diagnosis and health profile brings this into sharp focus.
The first group were given a pot plant by a carer who said 'dont worry we will take care of it'. The second group were given a pot plant and told by a carer that they would be responsible for the plants welfare.
So, the first group were passive (more of what they knew) and the second were active, tending their plant, keeping it fed and watered, enjoying its healthy presence. The second group lived for on average 18 months longer.
If you read this blog - you are probably interested on some level in the dynamics of difference, the ways in which we relate to each other and the need to reflect on what it takes to be together. I am aware that I have often over supported, assuming that my helpful ways are welcome. I am learning about the need to step back, to just be, assuming nothing and allowing space for reciprocity so that more mutual interdependent relationships can emerge.
There is great joy to be found in giving - it is fundamental to what makes us whole.
Andy
The first group were given a pot plant by a carer who said 'dont worry we will take care of it'. The second group were given a pot plant and told by a carer that they would be responsible for the plants welfare.
So, the first group were passive (more of what they knew) and the second were active, tending their plant, keeping it fed and watered, enjoying its healthy presence. The second group lived for on average 18 months longer.
If you read this blog - you are probably interested on some level in the dynamics of difference, the ways in which we relate to each other and the need to reflect on what it takes to be together. I am aware that I have often over supported, assuming that my helpful ways are welcome. I am learning about the need to step back, to just be, assuming nothing and allowing space for reciprocity so that more mutual interdependent relationships can emerge.
There is great joy to be found in giving - it is fundamental to what makes us whole.
Andy
Sunday, 7 February 2010
A Deep Respect for Family Life
"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfil them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves"
Pierre Tielhard De Chardin (1881 - 1955)
I saw a care home for older people selling its 'service' like this:-
"We care so you dont have to"
and I heard a mum who said that social workers were trying to 'get her to let go' and that it would be better if her son who is a lovely joyful presence, who happens to be autistic and have epilepsy, were to have his own life away from his mum and his big brother.
In a place I managed their was a pervasive culture in which parents were labelled and blamed and judged - 'they dont care' , 'they are over protective' , 'they are always complaining' were the schemas amongst managers and staff. The workers had not considered how it is to trust a group of people to take care of and asist your family member day after day...or how it is to be away from the people who love you into the hands of people who don't. The family support group was a place where we were able to get closer to the truth.
There is a subtle sense in which when 'services' get involved something has changed forever. The sense that the person loses some deep sense of family identity by becoming a recipient. I have worked hard in seeking to provide respectful and useful support for much of the last 20 years and I know how difficult it has been for me to retain my own sharp sense of family and of the value of intimacy with families in the work that I have done.
Family life is sacred, the fear and pain that has been a feature of the lives of many disabled people is frequently not explored or understood.
My plea is to make explicit our need to understand each other - a willingness to listen profoundly can be so healing and can create the conditions where real partnership and solidarity can emerge.
Andy
Pierre Tielhard De Chardin (1881 - 1955)
I saw a care home for older people selling its 'service' like this:-
"We care so you dont have to"
and I heard a mum who said that social workers were trying to 'get her to let go' and that it would be better if her son who is a lovely joyful presence, who happens to be autistic and have epilepsy, were to have his own life away from his mum and his big brother.
In a place I managed their was a pervasive culture in which parents were labelled and blamed and judged - 'they dont care' , 'they are over protective' , 'they are always complaining' were the schemas amongst managers and staff. The workers had not considered how it is to trust a group of people to take care of and asist your family member day after day...or how it is to be away from the people who love you into the hands of people who don't. The family support group was a place where we were able to get closer to the truth.
There is a subtle sense in which when 'services' get involved something has changed forever. The sense that the person loses some deep sense of family identity by becoming a recipient. I have worked hard in seeking to provide respectful and useful support for much of the last 20 years and I know how difficult it has been for me to retain my own sharp sense of family and of the value of intimacy with families in the work that I have done.
Family life is sacred, the fear and pain that has been a feature of the lives of many disabled people is frequently not explored or understood.
My plea is to make explicit our need to understand each other - a willingness to listen profoundly can be so healing and can create the conditions where real partnership and solidarity can emerge.
Andy
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